Final 4 Climax Means NFL Finishes 1 Month Break

The marketing and sales machine that is the National Football League maintains a strangle-hold on sports news for most of the year. Every month, there is something going on that dominates ESPN Sportscenter. Every month except March.

No, the only truly America sport allows one month for other sports to take the complete spotlight. As of the time of this post, there is only one top story on the Worldwide Leader in Sports coming from pigskin land, and it’s really only “charged” because of off-the-field actions. Pacman thinks his time is done with the Titans. It’s not a shocker, but I guess there has to be something about the NFL at all times.

History has been made in this NCAA Tournament. For the first time, all 4 #1 Seeds advanced to the Final 4. In a tournament that started off with such hope of mega-upsets, there is a sort of justice that FINALLY the 4 teams that were supposed to make it actually did make it. Otherwise, a lack of super-talent has made this a lackluster tournament compared to some of the recent ones.

And the NFL waits. It stretches, bounces, pumps its legs in place, and prepares for the official start of the NFL season hype machine. The NFL Draft and all of the combines, workouts, rumors, trades, trade rumors, background checks, and fabricated news angles officially mark the start of the marathon. Words will start to pop into every interview and commentary during this time such as “upside”, “intangibles”, “transition”, “speed in pads”, “mock drafts”, and “more mock drafts”. All this, and that’s BEFORE the actual draft.

We will see training camps, talk of hold-outs, and discuss depth charts. Speculation of break-out seasons, sleeper teams, and the obligatory Peyton vs Tom arguments will ensue.

The the preseason hits, and more people will watch football games that don’t count than baseball games that do. We finally get to the season, watch 17 weeks of it, then a long playoff, finally culminating in the Super Bowl and Pro Bowl in February.

Then, we’ll take another break from the NFL to watch March Madness. From a business perspective, 11 out of 12 ain’t bad.

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I am a sports journalist in my own mind. Read the occasional sports analysis at Noozeez.